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Ask HN: Seeking ideas for preschool/school projects
120 points by ElCapitanMarkla 18 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 86 comments
I'm reaching out for some creative suggestions. I have a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old attending preschool/school, and both sets of teachers have asked for ideas from parents for skills they could show or projects they could help with in the classroom.

I have a background in computer science, primarily focused on web development these days. Additionally, I have loads of potentially useful toys at home, including a 3D printer, DIY CNC mill, webcams, Raspberry Pis, old laptops, etc.

What are some engaging activities or projects I could bring to either level of the schools that would be both fun and educational for the kids? Particularly ideas we could do as a class vs breaking into smaller groups.

I have had a couple of ideas so far - Processing based art interactive which the kids can suggest updates for and instantly see the changes. - Something RTLSDR based, so we can play with antennas and catch some radio waves.

Looking forward to your creative ideas and suggestions, thank you.




What's fun, and very interesting for both children and adults, is going zero tech. In fact, go back to prehistory.

You start with the different properties of stones. If you have flint, obsidian, granite, quartzite, gypsum, and calcite in your region -- find them together. If not, buy them. Teach your kids about their different properties, and how they were used to make hand tools.

Then, the different properties of woods. Hard, soft, green, etc. Show them why ash and hickory (and especially negatively buoyant cornus mas, if you can get it,) make much better tools than pine. Make wooden spears and harden their points in a fire you make with stone tools.

Then integrate the two -- use stone tools to make other stone tools, and combine stone and wood into wooden-handled stone tools. Make bows and stone-tipped arrows, and use them. Go foraging with the children, and teach them how to cook vegetables, fish, and meat over an open fire. (Note: Beware mushrooms unless you really know what you're doing.)

In short order, the children will understand how men have lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Then they can advance into copper smelting, pottery, building carts and canoes, making nets from natural fibers, writing on clay tablets, and so forth...

I feel that, as with math where the optimal method is to start with Euclid and then progress through the ages, one ought to learn to be in the world by moving through man's stages of development. At 4-7, they're in their prime for traipsing around the woods and making stone tools.


And this paves the way to the rabbit hole of fossil collecting. And easily to camping, star gazing, Astronomy, Physics, Math and all sorts of things that humans naturally need in the wilderness.


> Beware mushrooms unless you really know what you're doing.

If you know what you're doing, you should know that children generally shouldn't eat wild mushrooms - they're hard to digest.


All my childhood I was eating wild picked mushrooms prepared in various ways, they were delicious and I don't remember any digestion problems.


I live in a pretty rural place, and around here they sell wild mushrooms in supermarkets. Sometimes the mighty porcini (boletus sp.) is available -- but there are frequently chanterelles and morels available, and sometimes other types. Kids and even toddlers eat them all the time, though admittedly they're usually well cooked, or dried and then cooked, or even cooked and then pureed.

I don't recommend doing it with kids (or at least eating them with kids) but mushroom foraging is a lot of fun.


I lead a makerspace at my kids' elementary school. We do no coding or modern making, or whatever it is adult nerds like to play with. Mostly because this age group can't manage it, especially in 40 minute session, and I'm competing with a Lego corner. Mostly we try to get new views on the natural world and get exposed to different tools.

This week, we managed to bang out some bee houses of some scrap lumber I had. We learned about why mason bees are great, and got to use power tools in the library. They had so much fun and we were goal-oriented, so that even the troublemakers among them were helpful.

The most engaging activity (especially for younger grades) was a bunch of light bulbs, batteries and switches, all mounted on wood tiles and connected with alligator clips. So simple but let kids experiment with making huge circuits together, debug unexpected behavior (why did it turn off when the switch closed?), and learn about conductors that could substitute for wire.

About the most complicated thing we've done is paper circuits (with copper tape), lighting up LED skull eyes for a Día de los Muertos card. The debugging was hard, and a lot of kids would've benefitted from doing the light bulb activity first with an eye toward this.

My "worst" activity was digging soil samples (fun) and seeing how the layers separated in water after days to settle in order to classify the soil type (boring, pointless). Luckily I also brought our vermicomposter, and everyone had a great time playing with worms.

Another parent did an ambitious sewing project, which took 2-3 sessions to complete but was great to get kids to get exposed to sewing machines, and they had a gift for a parent.

--

Yes, pick the topics that you're passionate about because your visible enthusiasm is critical to engagement, but don't make it about, say, 3D printing because you want to use your printer (you'll just end up doing a lot of work for indifferent kids). Keep it simple and learn from what the kids respond to.


  light bulbs, batteries and switches, all mounted on wood tiles and connected with alligator clips
I'd love to see a photo of this. Maybe I can replicate it.


I just discovered they are from this series: https://www.spiralbound.design/learning-store/


Thanks for sharing this, this is really cool


I'm a lecturer and it strikes me you are talking about some pretty advanced stuff there:-)

I would go for a hands-on, making exercise. I think my son was around 7 when I made a crystal radio with him. He was pretty bored until he heard voices in the earpiece. I will never forget the look of surprise on his face. You are an extremely curious, independent learner. Most students are not in my experience. The biggest challenge in education is moving the least able, to the most able forward. So consider activities that work for all. You suggested group work which is a good idea as you can assign members specific tasks.


That sounds great but I have no idea how you would make such a thing. Is there a guide somewhere? Would love to try with my 6 year old.


This book [1] (PDF) was what I used to start making radios as a child.

[1] https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/M...


I focus on just using stuff with my kids. Things like piloting a remote control car is hard for a 4 year old, but they still want to do it. Playing Tetris on a slow speed, naughts and crosses, simplified chess, making objects out of paper, painting acorns, building train tracks, Lego, and so on.

You need engagement first, in order to cause learning, and I guess any process that causes both learning and engagement makes sense, but in my experience at young ages, that's more likely to be on the doing/using rather than creating side of the spectrum.


>Lego

Reminded me of the Logo language and its turtle graphics. It was made for kids, IIRC.

Used it some, early on. Fun.

There are free versions.

Also, Python has a turtle graphics module, like Logo.


You can teach a 4 year old chess I’ve done it many times (patiently)


Doubtless there are some four year olds to whom some people could teach chess. However, I'd say that learning chess, beyond how the pieces move, was an extraordinary level of competence for a 4 year old.


I disagree. You can teach a 4-year-old the moves each chess piece can make, but expecting them to absorb strategy, or to visualise 2+ moves into the future is an unfair burden.

The following are much better perfect information games for kids. I play each with my kids and have listed the age when they were able to strategise 2+ moves ahead:

- Gobblet Gobblers (4)

- Onitama (6)

- Hive (8)


Perhaps its where I live, or the people I know, but at my kids pre-school, I suspect that few 4 year olds could play naughts and crosses to a draw. I think that sort of awareness started around 5.5-6, where it became more normal.

Gobblet Gobblers -- on a cursory look -- seems to me like a complication on top of naughts and crosses. Namely, adding the ability to mask opponent pieces, and replace existing pieces.

As a side note it seems to me that one could replicate Gobblet Gobblers by using coloured coins of 3 sizes, with the smaller coins trumping the bigger ones thereby implying stacks.


Gobblet is a great game, ages 4- seems right. My 9 and 11 year olds still play occasionally.

Hive v Onitama, is Hive better for older kids or just more complex?


Hive is more complex and less constrained than Onitama (bigger decision space).

We tried Hive when my eldest was 6 and it was beyond them. We tried it again a few years later at 8 and it clicked, has been part of our regular rotation of games since.

reply


If you can obtain a microscope with a projector/display they can all see at once, and have a bunch of familiar sample objects that get non-intuitive under the microscope, they might really like that. Especially if you can do it with progressive wide range of magnification.

For each sample, you could show it to them by eye, ask them what it is, maybe pass it to one of them, ask them what it is (including everyone shouting out the answer, like it's a game, depending on age). Then you show them on lowest magnification. Then you increase magnification. This might be new to them and break their brains in a good way.

This can get into vague overview about how big things are made up of smaller things, that look different when you look closely.

You can also talk about seeing more detail of things when you're close to them than when you're far away, which is more intuitive, though I don't know whether this will confuse them about distance and too much about optics at once.

Once they are starting to get magnification, you can also put a sample unknown to them under max magnification, so they can only see the highly magnified display of it, and make a guessing game about what it is. Progressively lower magnification, whether or not someone guesses right, so they see that progression regardless, and it also makes a reveal of the answer to the game.


There's a book Math from Three to Seven which may be very relevant. Of course you're talking about more than math.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Math-from-Three-to-Sev...


At that young age I would recommend working on just generalized cognitive skills. Here is my list of things (off the top of my head) most adults are horrible at. Some child are absolutely gifted in these items, but most are not:

* Number acuity - This is the skill of visually knowing the number of things by looking at a collection of things without using a counting system, for knowing the number of dots on a card instantly from vision only. Some children struggle with as a few as four, but most will average around 6. The most brilliant of people will top out around 11. Tree sloths can do around 40.

* Tree model navigation - This is the abstract skill of navigating data points via node relationships in a large data model. Children are surprisingly better at this than adults, but its still makes for fun puzzle adventures. Females are far more gifted at this than males. Even in programming where this is a very real skill most male programmers who do this for a living are absolutely terrified of it and will make up all kinds of bullshit excuses to avoid reasoning about it.

* Cause and effect - This is far less straight forward than most people consider especially when both the cause and effect are points taken from an abstract set of relations. Adults actually fail at this skill just over half the time.

* Greater than and less than - This is another thing that is less straight forward than it seems and largely accounts of bias. Consider how people apply this form of comparison to non-numeric qualities or falsely equivocate non-numeric qualities to numeric values to ease their own reasoning. Examples may include perceptions of space/distance and whether a thing is better, more important, or more immediate than another thing.

* Measurement - This is another thing most adults, especially programmers, commonly fail at and also accounts for bias. Teach children how to measure things, what constitutes valid measures, when to apply measures, and what defines a measure.

* Listening - Listening is not hearing. Hearing is a physical sensual quality. Listening is an information processing quality necessary for empathy and following instructions. There are many adults that fail at this too for a wide variety of reasons. In childhood experiments males tend to do better at listening if the subject matter relates to an ordered list of instructions despite females measuring absolutely superior in language skills across the board.


For number acuity, you might like this simple web I created a while ago. Have your child on your lap, open the link on your mobile, make sure volume is turned up, and tap the screen.

https://dots.twilam.com/


That’s amazing. These kinds of simple tests/tools offer far reaching rehabilitation and neurological assessment capabilities.


Good Advice!

To expand on the above, i think more generally kids should be taught Abstraction and how to map Concepts to Symbols which they can then manipulate based on defined rules. IIRC, Douglas Hofstadter's book GEB invents various "games" using symbols/rules to introduce Formal Systems.


1. Snap circuits. 2. Legos. 3. Straw Rockets (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/project/make-a-straw-rock...). 4. 100 yard paper rocket launcher (https://www.instructables.com/100-Yard-Paper-Rocket-Launcher...). 5. Alka Seltzer Rockets.


I might have to make some of those straw rockets just for myself :)


Building a terrarium out of plexiglass and silicon sealant is a fun project for multi age groups. The older kids can do interesting math projects like "calculate the volume of the aquarium" or "calculate the total cost of parts cut at the hardware store". Then both groups can go out into a park or wilderness area and collect insects, moss, plants, soil, rocks and amphibians to put in the terrarium after it's built. You can collect these in mason jars or recycled bottles with holes poked in the lids (when necessary). If you have a microscope or handheld lens you can look at pond water or found objects to observe what is hidden to the naked eye. Teaching kids how to do field reports and write their observations, make drawing, etc. The older kids can give lessons and teach the younger ones.


> If you have a microscope or handheld lens you can look at pond water or found objects to observe what is hidden to the naked eye.

Decent electronic field microscopes are only like $30-40 on Amazon. They broadcast a Wifi network that you connect to on your phone and use an app to view the image, take photos, etc.


Kids have voices, which they can control very well. Setup a mic, link it to a occiliscope-style display, the bigger the better. Teach them the difference between pitch and volume. They will enjoy "seeing" their own voice. And maybe some we learn about being quiet while others have a go.


Add some instruments, like a guitar and a drum.

There are a few osciloscopes and espectrogram online, that use the nic of the computer.


Scale model of the solar system! https://www.exploratorium.edu/explore/solar-system/activity/...

Have each kid 'adopt' a planet, give them the materials to construct the planet at the appropriate scale and they tell the group 5 fun facts about their planet when the group walks from Sun to Pluto. It is a WHOA experience for kids and adults about the emptiness of space. Scale for the stamina of your kid group, Pluto is way out there.


Oh yeah I remember doing this with an old science teacher when I was about 14. Our school grounds were pretty big being in a small country town but we couldn’t fit Pluto in without shrinking the sun/planets crazy small.


There are a lot of activities on the CS Unplugged website: https://www.csunplugged.org/en/

https://classic.csunplugged.org/activities/

I also like the self-paced courses on Code.org: https://code.org/student/elementary

My kindergartner has access to Tynker through school. Maybe your school district has a license to something similar?

Good luck!


code.org has an unplugged section as well.

https://code.org/curriculum/unplugged


A while ago, I developed a decibel meter designed like a traffic light for a preschool classroom. The device visually represents different noise levels by changing colors and can also be manually operated via IR remote. I've shared my project, along with several suggestions for its educational use in the classroom, on this here: https://makerworld.com/en/models/186425#profileId-205268


Have them try to ID common yard broadleaf “weeds”, which imo have rather nice (if small and hard to notice) flowers. Learning things like:

1. What conditions they like

2. How they behave over time

3. What insects are attracted to them or eats them

…puts them in touch with the world.

IDing grasses is much harder, even for me unless it has a seedhead out or you have a microscope and know how to use a species identification key, so I wouldn’t bother with those.

PlantNet.org has a pretty nice app to assist ID with photo, but you can’t take the first result at face value.


Arvind Gupta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Gupta) is a well-known science educator/toy inventor who teaches Science/Technology using low-cost/trash items.

His very popular TED talk titled Turning trash into toys for learning : https://www.ted.com/talks/arvind_gupta_turning_trash_into_to...

Videos/Photos at website : https://www.arvindguptatoys.com/

Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/@arvindguptatoys

These are excellent for teaching/involving kids by doing. They are also very easy on the pocket and every kid can have his/her own complete set of items needed to build their toys.


The 4 year olds may be too young,but I am a big fan of teaching how we got here.

I gave a 6 session course to a homeschool coop on the History of Technology starting from stones and moving through bronze age, iron age, steam power, electricity, telegraph demo (big hit) radio and TV and early computers.

(I think Engineering schools should have a course on tech history)


Sounds super interesting. Any notes or slides or anything you can share?


Not really I cobbled together some notes from Internet content. Of note since it was a church based group, I referenced ancient time to biblical figures and the estimated dates of their time because they new of these characters. (I had to puncture the 6,000 year old earth idea, but I didn't hear complaints from parents so I guess they are not in that camp)


Hi, With my 7 years old I started to thinker with https://www.scratchjr.org/. She like to create short movies with it. The next level will be https://sonic-pi.net/


YMMV: kids are not surprised by computers anymore since they are pervasive in their lifes. A 3D printer is amazing but it could be really slow I would prefer robots/cars ala Logo turtle. A friend of mine played with Maley Makey. Beyond computers chemistry, physics, magic...


How about something that doesn't involve electronic technology? You might be able to teach 4 year olds how to fold paper airplanes (maybe printing off some pages with fold lines so they can easily follow along). For the 7 year olds, teach them how to play Yahtzee.


Paper airplanes are a rich medium. It's fast and fun to get results, and quick to iterate on improvements. You can start to fold in physics/aerodynamic lessons and introduce them (without a lecture) on how to think like an engineer when you add weight to the front, or flaps to the wings, experiment with number of folds, etc.


Kids love a projector that responds to their movements. So a movie of fish swimming that respond as the kids run around in the water.

I saw a cool one that had a water fall on a wall that became a river on a floor and the kids could take cushions and divert the river by blocking its flow. The 7 year olds would like that.

4 year olds like physical challenges. So you could use the projector to do a dynamic hop scotch or jumping game with Lilly pads.

I am actually not a big fan of getting kids involved with devices though. I think they need to learn to play in groups, spend time outside, and learn to be as physically capable as possible.

I think if you use tech it would ideally be to teach them a rule based team game where they have to work together, user their imagination and solve a problem.


A lot of these ideas are really advanced or technically hard to setup. There are a few books aimed at teach kids coding concepts without actually getting into coding.

I'd suggest make a simple maze on a piece of paper. Have a "robot" that will go through the maze they you will "program" to solve the maze. Then have the kids vote on the steps to take, and write them down as the program. Show then how the program will run.

Inevitably they will hit a wall or get turned around so show them how to debug the program and fix it iteratively. Lots of fun, interactivity and real programming concepts!


If they haven't seen a 3D printer or CNC mill work before, that might be a good demo for preschool, if you can make something really fast on it, that they can see evolve over a few minutes.

So they can see it, maybe ask teacher in advance whether they can stand around the table you've set up on, or what their seating arrangement is (on carpeted floor, movable low chairs, circle of chairs, array of desks, etc.).

Beware that 3D printers can aggravate respiratory problems, so maybe enclosed and ventilation hose to window. With CNC, you have to watch out for metal filings that can poke kids (and get transferred to eyes, etc.), or maybe short later electronics.

Bonus if you have time to show them one predetermined object, then go to make another object that has some choice for them in the design. Maybe you're making a cartoon character figure on a large 3D modeling thing (very quickly, speedrunning it) and you can ask them about the expression and things. Or maybe something for their teacher's, like a 3D "nameplate" for their desk, with some options for customization kids can choose, like font or decorations you put on it. (Unfortunately, probably can't do one of the kids' names, unless you brought enough print time for everyone, but having them make a personalized gift for their shared non-kid is good.) Try to think of things they can't do with poster paint, glue, and macaroni, without discouraging those media.


Maybe just give some interactive demos to the kids showing the power of modern tech?

Animate drawings: https://sketch.metademolab.com/

Generate music, based on ideas from the kids using Suno or Udio.

Generate a story with GPT/Claude where kids in the classroom are the characters. Create images using Dall-e 3 and print copies so the kids can take it home.

This would probably be of interest to many parents and teachers too.


Can confirm the animated drawings. I built a company (dibulo.com) which does that (Age 3-8 mostly, but also adults and seniors seem to like it). We love that kids spend more time coloring than looking at the screen (although it is always a magic moment). We also do not have a lot of interaction with the screen itself and soon gonna add more and more educational elements to it.


That’s really cool.


You could look into setting up a Code Club.

https://codeclub.org/en/

And we have a tonne of resources at https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en

Playing around with teachable machine is also a tonne of fun for kids, and MIT have a platform called RAISE playground that has Scratch with teachable machine extensions


Kinda out of context, but it's funny how I played with my kid for years around computers, games, code camps and so on since he was 3yo - now at 20 he has no interest whatsoever in "coding" but is absolutely absorbed by chemistry - now in pharmacology in university. Anyway, cheers on the project - kids and the time we spend with them is so important.


Not my resource but a neighbour and friend of mine built this free resource for Machine Learning education https://machinelearningforkids.co.uk/#!/about

The tool is entirely web-based and requires no installs or complicated setup to be able to use.


You want to guide the kids to explore the world and creativity while having fun.. Not put them through a college maker club.


You could consider doing a mini hackathon with the kids whereby the aim is to create a board game of some kind. Have the kids design the game on paper or card,then at the end use your cnc mill to create the boards, tiles, player pieces etc. You could then use the world cafe (https://toolbox.hyperisland.com/world-cafe) facilitation method for all the teams to explain their games to each other and recommend improvements. You could even show them how to use chatgpt to take their game ideas and flesh them out at a later stage (tutorial, rules etc.)

This idea would allow them to create something fun which is their own, that they can keep in the classroom and play with. It may also make them think of what other games they can create in the future.


How about hooking a camera up as input to some generative art algorithms in p5.js, Processing, or similar. Kids move/dance in front of the camera and the results are projected on an adjacent screen in realtime. Then you can save the pieces they generate and have a few of them printed!


Take them outside and play with drones or RC cars. Stick a camera on them.

There's a million different lessons you can teach about them, point is letting everyone have fun and possibly sparking interest in some of them.

Don't sit them in front of a computer screen or expect them to sit through a lecture.


In my experience, kids already get plenty of opportunities for screen-based STEM stuff. Mine have Hour of Code that offers block programming tutorials that are relatively fun. If they're anything like we were, they'll self-teach computer stuff when they're ready.

So I don't do much of that, and instead find other, more hands-on things I'm curious about and we can explore together.


What about knot tying? I, and a lot of people I work with are big fans.

They are ancient, but still the preferred method of doing many practical things. That's really something special.

Everyone, myself included, seems to love the ambiance of real candlelight, but for basic, utilitarian stuff like finding my keys in the dark or making a snack in a power outage, I'd rather use an LED.

If I want to hang something I'm just going to tie a knot, and I won't be annoyed at all that I don't have some fancy piece of hardware(Not that I'm against such things for hyper specialized applications or to help people with disabilities).


So... one thing I can say from experience is that you need to be aware of the motor skill limitations of the under 12 set. There really is something that happens around age 12 that causes a quantum leap in fine motor skills. So... tune your projects to minimize frustration around that. I learned that the hard way by seeing a selection of my projects randomly fall one side or the other of that motor skill limitation because I was clueless when I designed the experiments.

Now to your direct question: Once upon a time I did a 10 week basic electricity class for about 8 kids of about 7 years old. Yes, it was pretty basic. One thing I took advantage of was that Harbor Freight was running a deal where you could get a multi-meter for US$3. So... I gave one to every kid.

First lesson was "conductors and insulators" -- I can't remember how I explained the concept to 7 year olds, but the lab was a hoot. I had a bucket of stuff like nails, bits of cloth, an apple, etc, just random stuff. And a dish of salt, and a dish of water. Use the Ohmmeter to find out what is a conductor and what is an insulator. After everyone had discovered that the dish of salt and the dish of water were both insulators.... I poured some water into the salt. Woah!!! It conducts! What's up with that? By the end of the lab I had totally lost control and the kids were raiding the fruit plate in the kitchen... "Is a banana a conductor?" ... followed by vigorous stabbing of meter probes. Anyway, the teachers you are working with may not be so cool with the losing-control-of-the-class part, but I count that as a metric of success.

Another lesson that was very popular, but required too much motor skill, is that I had rounded up some 7-segment LED displays, and some 8-gang DIP switches. (We had built a single LED circuit in a previous lesson.) I had them build up a circuit where they could control each segment with it's own switch (hint: prototyping boards are beyond 7yo motor skills...we had enough parents to help with the wiring...) After it worked, I had them make numbers by setting switches. Then I asked them to invent other displays, like find "letters" or just fun shapes. Then... I told them to look around the house, and their own house when they got home, to find number displays. Like on the microwave oven, etc. You could sense the real "Wow, now I understand this!" moment when they realized the basic operation of a common part of their world.

Bottom line: If you can find a way to help them understand even just a little bit of how their world works, it will be a popular experiment.


Minecraft has a mod called ComputerCraft, which adds lua-powered computers to the game. They can read various state from the world, like redstone levels and chest contents, and move things between chests and set redstone outputs and play sound and etc. You can also upgrade them into turtles, which can move around and mine blocks and stuff. It's a nice environment for basic robotics programming with immediate feedback.

(IIRC there's theoretically an "educational edition" of this, but I don't know if I'd put much stock in that; you're close enough and personalizing the learning enough that you're probably better off just using the normal mod.)


Good idea! I prefer Minetest as it is free, open source and requires no logins. Just making things in Minetest is enough for 4-6 year olds, and the mods are extensible if suitable.


Water bottle rockets that have to carry and land an egg without cracking it are fun, and the launcher except pump can be 3d printed. The kids can make the rest of the rockets out of cardboard/foam/plastic bag parachutes etc).


Preschool, they're hopefully very restricted on screen time, and might not want to encourage that.

With a bit older kids, once they're all allowed to use smartphones, tablets, or video games, showing them they could make a game, using kind of pedagogic morphs world platform (maybe Squeak or Scratch), could be great. You can let them show them something like how to make a car or character of shapes and make it move somehow, then ask for more ideas and live-implement them. (Try for direct manipulation and concrete and visual, minimizing textual/block code as much a possible.)


Something perhaps a bit involved: 3D printing custom "counting" aids. I remember having the block sets that represented 1s (single, small blocks), 10s (a stack of them), 100s (a 10x10 plane), and 1000s (a solid 10x10x10 block) in class. Could make them something other than plain blocks, perhaps little figurines (apples? puppies?). Or take suggestions from the kids. Maybe something more relevant for the older kids. Then bring the 3D printer in and explain how it works. Making that connection between learning, tool-making, agency, and of course the specific technology itself.


Have the class teach you how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Follow their instructions, EXACTLY. If they start off with something like “put jelly on the bread,” put the jar of jelly on the loaf of bread. It’s really fun with kids and they learn a lot about logic. Everyone gets to chime in, the adult looks silly and handles mistakes gracefully, the situation can end up hilarious.

I’ve done this with a kid and also in an intro programming class, and it worked with both age groups.


Playtronica synths. They are touch-based sound generators that can be triggered with capacitive connections. You can make keyboards out of fruit. You can have 3 kids hold hands to form a connection that makes a funny sound. I have seen them at maker and DIY festivals and they are always a hit. I just looked them up and apparently they have all kinds of web toys to control with the hardware. Neat.


Pottery plus blinkenlights.

3D printer and CNC are sort of too specific ... at that age, for most projects, cardboard prototypes are better (cheaper, faster, more rewarding, more parallel). Pottery is even better though because it becomes a permanent piece and lets you do painting as well.

In later school maybe basic robotics works with a pi... lesson by lesson skill building like "synth speech", "parse speech", "sensor data acquisition", "internet query", "database 101", whatever...


My kid is currently eight. We have been making slime together (and having a great time) since she was four. In the beginning, it was about showing her how different recipes lead to different textures. Now, she measures everything and we talk a bit about the chemistry of what is happening.

I’ve done a lot of things with my kid but never something that they have grown with like making slime. We’ve spent hundreds of hours and we both find it just as much fun now as when we started.


My 1st grader loooves tape. And dolls. And we order Amazon regularly. We have purchased one of the simple cardboard knives.

The simple level is to turn the Amazon boxes into doll houses.

Slightly more advanced is to make furniture for the dolls. Like a simple shoebox quickly becomes a Barbie closet.

For bigger boxes, given the right shape, it is easly to cut and fold a high hair.


For such young kids, unless they're prodigies, it should be very much hands-on rather than anything too abstract.


I second that, what one can do at home with ones own (hacker) kids is different from a syllabus that all kids in class can access.


If you go with programming, have a look at this project I did for my own kids about your kids' age. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39704712


Treasure hunt creation. With a bit of tech and imagination you can recreate multiple worlds and adventures. Especially now with audio/AI voices and LLMs, you can recreate narrations by Dumbledore, Merlin, old school British wizards, etc.


Construction paper quilts - have precut shapes and examples to give them inspiration. Teaches about geometry and symmetry in a very informal organic way.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBzxyUkKo_s

Dig around Bret Victor's Dynamicland


Build and fly a kite!


This isn't quite the example list that you are looking for as the mentioned 'projects' in the following list were done at home, with a lot more timeframe allowed to discuss / work on them. My children are now 8 and 10, but we have been doing such similar things around the home since they were of similar ages to yours. A few of the things that we have done, and became large hits (hardly all computer related, but I think perhaps it's a mentality you are aiming for -- learn, create!)

* Augmented reality sandbox -- The software is still out there. You may have already seen these in action, but it really is not too terrible difficult to build a setup yourself. Old PC with some sort of GPU (for the rain effect, which is the coolest aspect..), a microsoft kinect, and a whatever quality projector. This went over super well in my living room when the kids were 4 & 6 -- And we recently re-built it 4 years later -- The 4 year old didn't even remember it, but I have lots of pictures of her loving it at 4!). Super cool, super interactive, and a good tie in of 'building things using old technology'.

* Grabbing weather from passing NOAA satellites! Build a simple di-pole antenna using whatever materials (we used copper pipe). Involves math and science discussions, and also may get the little ones interested in the weather. RTLSDR, some copper pipe, a laptop, some software, and knowing when to be tuning in. A good example of how 'the first time you try something it may not work as well as you'd like', tweak away from there. Pretty exciting to pull a picture from a satellite line by line. Listen to the signal -- Memories of dialup will immediately be there.

* Use a streaming camera and speed-cam software to create a setup to see 'how fast they can run'. Process and result and discussions about how this setup works can lead to fun insights.

* Stop motion video creation -- Probably the best for your use case, have kids use technology to create their own stop-motion videos. I remember doing this back around the ages of 7, but at that time it was frame by frame using construction paper and a giant VHS camera on a tripod. Techniques have not changed really, but the setup to do stop motion on small scale kid levels is basically free. Shows how iterative processes add up.

* Build a bubble making machine -- I imagine you may have a box of old computer fans, motors, etc, etc. Build a bubble machine! Have them try to design one out. 7 year olds likely able to really design rough concepts, 4 year old can help assemble and most importantly, spill the bubble liquid all over the place! If you want to get fancy, have it become a motion activated bubble machine using motion detection via some ESP32 setup or whatever. "This is what we are trying to do, these are the resources on hand, how do YOU think we could make this happen?".

String up a wire, bust out the RTLSDR (or other SDR stuff) and try to listen to some shortwave from around the world or your area. Pulling whatever from the air always seems basically magic to all kids (and honestly, it's pretty much magic to myself as well).

Not really an able to do at school thing, but son build an AM / FM radio kit that had your typical Chinese 'instructions' and was able with a tiny bit of help to solder everything to the board and have it work first try. As someone else mentioned, it went "Lots of interest > I'm kind of tired of this > I'm so close I will push on > Oh my goodness, the radio works, this is the best". I'm a huge fan of trying to install the 'keep at it' or make changes to make things better way of teaching and learning.

* School/Maybe -- * Make electromagnets by wrapping some wire around some good sized nails, put a switch on it, and both mentioned age groups will likely find it super cool and is certainly electronic/science based.

Just a few of the things we have done around my house thus far and have shown a lot of engagement and interest, and helped to create that 'spark' about wanting to learn more stuff.

I think this summer will bring more radio related things: Sensors to monitor humidity levels to be graphed from our garden, building some actual meshtastic nodes to chat to other people way across town over the airwaves, etc. My 10 year old has started designing a project to "automatically lower sunglasses over his glasses if it is sunny", and I hunch we will finally acquire a 3df printer to see this project through to completion. I'm hardly a programmer, but he did a '30 days lost in space' kit last year, and between the information he started poking with through that, and the assisting of some AI, I'm sure we can work together to pull his implementation off, however he goes about it.

As others said, it's great to see trying to share the desire to learn into the little ones -- They are way more capable than society lets on, you just have to get them interested in things and they are astounding tiny sponges! Good luck!


Re: AR sandbox.

Wow!

So cool, I want one. Watch the video here (1) it gets really neat at 1:43.

I want to do this.

For this who don’t know, cheap projectors these days are quite decent. I got one for $75 and we use it as the main screen for the kids. During very sunny days it does not work well, which is a benefit. If it’s too bright to watch TV then go outside! I have one like this and I love it, plenty of other vowel-poor companies make similar. (2)

There is also a makers magazine that has all kinds of ideas. Pretty cheap through discount magazine. https://makezine.com/

1 https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/

2 https://meh.com/forum/topics/vankyo-performance-v600-native-...

3 system 76 instructable https://www.instructables.com/Augmented-Reality-Sandbox/


Thanks for providing the links I did not -- Kids were waking up and I was trying to bang through it!

One of the things that I always messed up when calibrating it, is the step using the CD-on-a-stick part. You need to do this calibration phase changing the z axis on different points. Do one low. Do one medium, do some 'high'. This is how the system defines it's 'skew' of projection when it comes to the different heights/levels -- and if you do this step all roughly on the same 'z' plane, it will work, but it will not be anywhere near as accurate / magical feeling. The instructions I believe are hazy on this critical part of the setup.

We always used blocks / things covered with white rags instead of sand. Far easier to justify building over the living room table this way, and makes for a quick clean up process!

It's 100% super cool. Also, as you said, we use an $89 3 years ago projector. It is NOT a short-throw projector, but mounted roughly 6-7' above the surface. The kinect was mounted on a yard-stick hanging slightly down below so it's field of view covers just that of the table itself.

It's a super neat end result; and can be decently frustrating during the calibration phases and software setup, but is worth it!


My big suggestion is ask your younger child what they would like you to do first. Then separately ask your older child what they would like you to do.

Do them both. Good luck.


Catapults


Yeah! And surgical tubing slingshots. A very small construction project where they can learn to use a speed square. Tune the slingshot or catapult until it can launch a handball into a 1x1 meter square some distance away. Also a great way to wear the kids out having to run and collect the ball.


Dude just have them build legos or something.




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